1 billion in stock (Enron scandal at-a-glance, 2002, BBC). Both investors and employees alike saw their life savings wiped out as a result of the fraud (Kadlec 2002)
Duncan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with document shredding. The Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, in lieu of further disciplinary proceedings, revoked Duncan's license" (Romal & Hibschweiler 2004)
The Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, in lieu of further disciplinary proceedings, revoked Duncan's license" (Romal & Hibschweiler 2004). Auditing has traditionally been a self-regulating profession, but after Enron, SOX put into place independent legal guidelines to prevent ethical breaches (Verschoor 2012)
This article discusses the 2002 Act Congress passed in an attempt to control accounting and stock brokerage transactions, and how these companies could gain the confidence of the public. The author notes, "Confidence will be restored only by ethical leadership from the accounting profession, business community, and government" (Smith, 2003)
It increased retained earnings on the balance sheet since it treats their recurrent expenses as capital investments. On the side of the income statement, it reduces the expenses thereby increasing their net income (Albrecht et al
3 billion from their reserves and added it to the line of revenue. At this, the investors thought that their company was making gains while in reality, they were not (Jennings, 2011)
With that in mind, evaluate whether or not the current trend in the regulation of business establishments is favorable to ethical behavior. Supply supportive evidence to your answers (Jeter, 2003)
And Worldcom had been the most infamous of this accounting malpractice. This was how executives at Worldcom got involved in malpractices and unethical behaviors which violated accounting principles that were generally accepted (Malik, 2003)
Even if people benefited from the work of the fake CPA, his actions would still be wrong. In contrast, utilitarianism (also called consequentialism) holds: "Consequences -- and only consequences -- can conceivably justify any kind of act, for it does not matter how harmful it is to some so long as it is more beneficial to others" (Alexander & Moore 2012: 1)
However, viewing professional ethics from a purely utilitarian perspective is extremely problematic. Professional ethics by its nature assumes certain 'standards' which professionals must uphold, even if the consequences are not bad -- in fact, even if the consequences of the unethical action are 'good' (Driver 2009)
Particularly since Glick wants to investigate fraud as part of his future career, his willingness to put his own professional image above honesty is troubling in the eyes of the firm's partners. Virtue ethics is the idea that virtue is "something that makes its possessor good: a virtuous person is a morally good, excellent or admirable person who acts and feels well, rightly, as she should" (Hursthouse 2012: 2)
" It is ultimately not possible to fulfill the responsibilities of a professional role without possessing professional integrity. Even if firms are not 'ethical' agents, professionals who work within the guidelines of their established profession are regarded as moral agents, and persons who contract their services do so expecting professionals to obey a moral code (Marcoux 2009)
It may be naive to argue the company should not have re-established consulting services due to potential conflicts of interest, as there was a desire to increase profits. However, it maybe argued that the way in which the consulting services were pursued, with the expectation of the accounting partners to effectively act as salespeople, which started to create a foundation for compromised ethics (Jickling, 2002)